Listen to the Music, It Could Be Therapy for What Ails You

Researchers are finding that music therapy can treat a wide array of conditions.

In recent years, studies have concluded that listening to music can help people with Alzheimer’s and autism. They have found it can also benefit patients who are recovering from surgery.

The treatment has become popular enough that now dozens of colleges are offering music therapy as a degree, and some states are now issuing licenses for music therapists.

Latest Study on Epilepsy

Earlier this month, a study concluded that music can help to prevent seizures in people with epilepsy.

Christine Charyton, Ph.D., an adjunct assistant professor and visiting assistant professor of neurology at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, looked at the auditory cortex of the brain.

This cortex is in the temporal lobe of the brain, the same place where temporal lobe epilepsy originates. About 80 percent of epilepsy cases are classified as temporal lobe epilepsy.

Charyton’s team compared how music was processed in people with and without epilepsy.

They used electroencephalograms, which detect and record brainwaves using electrodes attached to the scalp.

Between 2012 and 2014, they collected data from 21 patients in the epilepsy monitoring unit at Wexner Medical Center.

On a random basis, they first monitored people listening to silence and then monitored them listening to either Mozart's Sonata for Two Pianos in D major, andante movement, (K. 448) or John Coltrane's “My Favorite Things.”

They listened to the two songs arbitrarily, with a 10-minute silence period in between each one.

The researchers found significantly higher levels of brainwave activity in people when they were listening to music. Charyton noted that brainwave activity in the temporal lobes of people with epilepsy tended to synchronize more with the music than in those without the condition.

While she does not believe music should replace current epilepsy therapy, Charyton said this research suggests music might be a novel intervention used in conjunction with traditional treatment to help prevent seizures in people with epilepsy.

“This study is the first step to see if music could impact the brain,” Charyton told Healthline.

She explained that epilepsy patients synchronize — or have electrical activity in the brain — before a seizure.

“In our study patients with epilepsy synchronized to the music withouthaving a seizure,” Charyton added. “We believe that music could potentially be used as an intervention to help people with epilepsy.”

According to research posted on The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, our emotional response to hearing music can boost the release of dopamine, a brain chemical that is lacking in Parkinson’s patients.

In addition, the American Music Therapy Association (AMTA) states that music therapy is also effective for treating people with autism, substance abuse disorders, mental health issues, and those in hospice care.

However, you don’t have to have a specific medical condition to benefit from music.

In the past decade, though, there have been more master’s and doctorate level degrees in music therapy emerging. Bumanis said there is more research and increasing acceptance of music therapy as an evidence-based practice.

“Interest in music therapy in the medical community and in popular culture has skyrocketed with the availability of technology that helps provide evidence of the impact of music on the body, the mind and the psyche,” said Darlene Brooks, Ph.D., who teaches music therapy at Temple University.

Her program was the first in the United States to offer a doctorate degree in music therapy.

Music Therapy as Integrative Medicine

Suzanne B. Hanser, Ed.D., who leads the music therapy department at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, added that music therapy also gained traction due to its place in integrative medicine, which takes into account the connections between mind, body, and spirit, and represents a holistic approach to health.

“As a result, music therapy services are increasing in medical centers and community clinics,” she told Healthline.

Hanser recently completed a yet-unpublished feasibility study. She examined the effects of music therapy interventions in a family medicine unit at an urban safety net hospital. This hospital assists patients with substance abuse, psychosis, and other chronic conditions.

“Music therapy interventions are showing success with these massive issues that affect physical health and mental status in many ways,” she said.